Scanners are often used to scan objects such as photographs. These scanned objects can then be used for many different purposes such as incorporation in a Web page, sending to friends and family over electronic mail, and/or the like. Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and Independent Hardware Vendors (IHVs) typically distribute scanners with image-processing software to simplify a user's scanning experience. Image processing software is typically configured to automatically analyze scanned image data to detect a single scanned object of interest. Upon detecting the single object, the image processing software typically either highlights the detected object with an outline and/or automatically segments the detected object from the scanned image data.
To speed up the scanning process when multiple objects such as photographs need to be scanned, a user will-typically place two, three, or more objects at a time onto the scanner s platen. After the multiple objects have been scanned, image processing software, rather than detecting multiple objects in the scanned image data, only typically detects a single large object comprised of the smaller multiple objects. Thus, the user generally needs to manually segment the single large object into several smaller objects to fully represent the multiple objects that were placed on the scanner's platen. Such manual segmenting is typically performed through the use of manual segmenting tools that are distributed with the image processing software. This process can be tedious and timing consuming for the user.
Accordingly, the invention arose out of concerns associated with providing improved systems and methods for scanning objects.